


the son of rage and love

by TheRangress



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: M/M, Renarin is a wolf boy and I'm never going to stop shouting about it, minor Navani Kholin, rated for a cameo by Renarin's dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 09:22:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13499110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRangress/pseuds/TheRangress
Summary: But he thinks of Renarin snarling as he grabs these men, runs his Blade through them and isn’t satisfied with that. Renarin, bloodstained and smiling, his anger still unsated. It’s a terrible thing, and Kaladin loves it somehow.Renarin is a terrible thing, and Kaladin loves him somehow.





	the son of rage and love

He should really be more uncomfortable with the blood that stains Renarin’s lips.

Soft skin and uncallused hands are beautiful lies. Renarin can be silk and whispers, he can tend gardens or hospitals with delicate touch. His voice is shy, his love is gentle.

People really believe that. Oh, some of it’s real, but it runs deeper than they care to look. Renarin is buried beneath the surface, a placid and dead shell that hides all the things Kaladin knows.

They lie in bed, Kaladin talking of scars through shaking breath. His past spills between his lips, weakened by allowing Renarin entrance to his mouth. A strong hand curves around his waist, holding him steady.

“I would kill them all,” says Renarin, his voice stronger than stone. “I would bring you their burned-out corpses so you could know they would never harm another.”

He thinks of all the death killing slavers would bring, the needless destruction— how pointless it would be. He thinks— _you can’t protect by killing_.

He imagines the kiss Renarin would give, over the cold and empty body of one of his former owners. A shy smile, gentle voice promising “you’re safe”.

“You would,” Kaladin says, resting his head on Renarin’s bare chest. It should be horror, but this is a comfort.

The hand on his hip is a little too tight, soft skin and broken fingernails. Kaladin searches his soul, and finds nothing but peace.

It’s wrong, he thinks, but slowly traces his lips up Renarin’s neck. Legs wrap around him, a low moan is muffled when he reaches that beautiful mouth. Unspoken words are scars on Renarin’s bloody, bitten tongue, and Kaladin traces them like prayer.

Slender legs wrap around him, hips rolling into each other, pressing tight enough he feels how hard Renarin is.

Half his mind is in the moment, Renarin’s slender waist and warm lips. Half is standing back, searching for the horror he should feel. Lustful hands wander down Kaladin’s back, and that should knot his stomach up, but it doesn’t. It did before, but Renarin is different.

He doesn’t want the people who once owned him dead anymore. He did, once, beat himself bloody with rage and bloodlust. Now there’s a low burn that says to rip their power away, maybe spit in their faces, but doesn’t ask to rip them apart. Even they, perhaps, deserve forgiveness.

But he thinks of Renarin snarling as he grabs these men, runs his Blade through them and isn’t satisfied with that. Renarin, bloodstained and smiling, his anger still unsated. It’s a terrible thing, and Kaladin loves it somehow.

Renarin is a terrible thing, and Kaladin loves him somehow.

Hot lips press against his cheek, and suddenly he can’t think anymore.

“I love you,” murmurs Renarin into his ear, pressing his hips in a little tighter.

“I love you,” Kaladin agrees. He grips Renarin’s waist with one hand. His thumb brushes along Renarin’s jaw, and he shudders slightly.

Renarin rests against his forehead, sighing with contentment. “Feel better?”

He runs his hand up Renarin’s shirt, fingers brushing along the pattern of his ribs.

“You know,” he says, “you don’t have to kill anyone. This… this is enough.”

“I’ll give you both.”

Of course. Renarin would never offer anything less.

He shouldn’t like it, but Kaladin runs his hands down Renarin’s spine and pulls him in for another kiss, trying to forget the taste of blood.

Don’t think. Just love.

 

* * *

 

He held a sword or a spear with graceful art, but a pen was clumsy. Navani tries to shape Renarin’s fingers, but stubbornly he clung to his crude grip.

“You’ve spelt half these words wrong.”

“I spelt them as they are said. That is, I believe, how letters work.”

“Another element of your problems.”

Kaladin sits nearby, a leg tucked under him, sliding the wooden pieces of a puzzle he’d found in Renarin’s room. He half-listens to the conversation, eyes unfocused, mind wandering.

Navani, with flowing strokes, writes a sentence. Renarin peers at it for a moment.

“No,” he says. “Father and I are going to make a nice sensible men’s writing and spell things correctly.”

“Well, it won’t get much use if it is for sensible men,” says Navani.

“Kaladin would use it. Wouldn’t you, Kaladin?”

“What?” He fumbles the puzzle and barely saves it from the floor. “Oh. Maybe.”

“Captain Stormblessed could, certainly, but your father couldn’t.” Navani attempts, again, to show Renarin how to hold a pen. He holds up his own, gripping it like a dinner knife. “I have my doubts about you.”

“I’m perfectly sensible.” Renarin holds his chin proud. “When I care to be. The thing is, I _don’t_ care to be.”

“Well, you can have another lesson when you do care to be sensible,” Navani says, gathering up her pens and ink. “There is nothing more I can do while you go on holding a pen like a bludgeon.”

“Fine,” Renarin says, stretching his arms over his head, long fingers arched backwards.

“You’re worse than your father.” She strides for the door, skirt trailing behind her, and Kaladin stands.

“Good.”

Kaladin shuts the door when they reach the hallway.

“Yes?” Navani asks, looking over her shoulder with eyebrows raised in lack of surprise.

His mouth stumbles a few times, sweaty hands running down the heavy fabric of his coat. “Are you ever afraid of Dalinar?”

Navani turns to him, not meeting his eyes. Head goes down, shoulders up. A hand moves to smooth her skirts. “I used to be, at times.”

He nods, casting his gaze to the shadows on the floor. “Why aren’t you, now?”

“Dalinar is a man who could never be controlled. No one could stop him.” Her tone is even, but underscored by lightning. “Now, he has learned to control himself.”

Kaladin nods. “Brightness.”

His hand is on the door when she speaks. “Are you afraid of Renarin?”

“No,” he says, hushed. His hand falls back to his side, and he looks to Navani. “Should I be?”

“Renarin is a man always in control of himself.” She speaks quietly, watching him with amethyst eyes. “And I’d say you’re the only other person in this world he’d allow to stop him.”

Kaladin’s mouth is dry.

“I know something of what it is to love a man with war in his bones.” Navani’s head tilts. “Yes, it’s hard. Do you know the trouble with men like that, Kaladin?”

The words come without thought. “What they become when there’s no war to fight.”

She gives a low laugh. “Yes. Yes, there is that.”

Kaladin steps away from the door, watching it and wondering if Renarin is listening. He wonders what Renarin would think, hearing their words. “What does it make us, Brightness? We choose men who are war.”

“It makes me a dangerous woman.” Navani raises her eyebrow. “You’re the one who decides what it makes you.”

He knows. It pounds with his heartbeat, echoing through him.

“Good afternoon, Captain Kaladin.”

Silk brushes on stone floors, and Kaladin waits for her to disappear before he fumbles for the door.

 

* * *

 

“I wish I could be more for you.”

Unwashed of battlefield, Renarin falls to his knees. In a second Kaladin is kneeling, gently cradling bloodstained cheeks. Tears are welling up, afraid to fall.

“What more could you possibly be?”

“Kind.” Renarin shuts his eyes, struggling for control of his breath. “A healer, Kaladin. I could be a healer, but instead I only _kill_.”

“You kill for love.” He pulls Renarin’s head to his chest, pressing a kiss to his disheveled hair.

“Love of killing, perhaps.”

Sometimes, Renarin is so soft, and so small. Sometimes you remember some of that blood staining him is his own, a boy ripping himself apart trying to stay silent.

“Do you know why your father and I can choose not to be soldiers?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, he knows Renarin better than that. “It’s a luxury you give us. My father… he told me a man cannot protect by killing, and he was wrong. The truth is ugly, Renarin. Sometimes a surgeon amputates, sometimes to save you must kill.”

Renarin doesn’t answer. He grips to Kaladin’s coat tight, breath steady but forced.

“I can choose to be kind.” Quiet words scrape his lips. “I can offer mercy and forgiveness without fear, because you stand behind me. You’re not some ruthless brute, Renarin, but you don’t forgive. Instead of being trapped by my fear, I trust in you. If I’m wrong… you’re there.”

“You hate this.” Renarin’s words drip with that blood, stained from trying to rip out his heart. “I am something _ugly_.”

“No.” He cups a hand to Renarin’s soft cheek. “You take ugliness and make it beauty.”

“You took the hate and pain of the world and turned it to _love_.” Renarin jerks back, wrapping his arms around himself, his stillness full of tension. “You fix broken things, Kaladin. You pour your heart into the cracks and let it heal every wound, take the pain of the world and make it your own. What am I, compared to that?”

“Pain and anger— you _use it._ Where others were corrupted, you were strong enough to make hatred a part of you and not be consumed. I have anger, Renarin, fierce and burning anger, and I trusted it to you. I could not bear it with your grace. You hold my anger now, and use it the way I never could.”

Kaladin stands, eyes on Renarin’s fortress shoulders. He moves to the nightstand, mechanically pours a basin of water. Taking that and a cloth, he returns to Renarin’s side.

“You should wash,” he says, wetting the cloth.

Renarin lifts his head, eyes shut, and lets Kaladin clean his face. The silence remains, and with gentle hands Kaladin pulls off Renarin’s jacket and shirt. Renarin pushes himself closer to the fire, his skin raised in chickenbumps where it was wet.

Kaladin is slow and methodical. Renarin is moved like a doll, not watching and not speaking.

“I love your anger,” Kaladin says, pressing a kiss to Renarin’s wet collarbone. Cold water, warm skin.

“My father’s anger,” he says, eyes downcast. Renarin moves his hands and pushes Kaladin’s coat from his shoulders.

Yes. Silly of him, to keep it on. “No, not your father’s. _Yours_. Your anger is not like his, or like mine. It is not something of Odium. Your anger is righteous. You fight for love, not wealth or glory.”

“But I do want glory.” Renarin takes the damp cloth from Kaladin. He wets it again, and begins to wash Kaladin’s face. “Damnation, I want _glory_.”

“It doesn’t matter. Love comes first.” He shuts his eyes, feeling the cool water on his eyelids. “You could never sacrifice a life, never betray trust, never go against what is _right_ for your own glory.”

“I…” Renarin’s hands fall away. Kaladin takes them, lacing their rough fingers together.

“You are war,” Kaladin breathes. “You are war, and yes, that should be ugly. Instead, you… hold all of it within you, and somehow turn ugliness beautiful. I turn pain to love? No. My pain is dull and deadened. I cast it aside. You hold it and refuse to let it change you. Instead, you change it. You turn pain to love.”

They kiss, and curl into each other by the fire’s light.

“Ever since I was a child,” Kaladin says, stroking Renarin’s tangled hair, “I wanted war. Not the war I was given— I never wanted that. You are the war I have always loved. Be fierce for me, Renarin, and I will heal.”

“What if I don’t want to be a war?”

“You do.”

Renarin clasps Kaladin’s hand in his. “I do.”

“You are my blade,” says Kaladin, pressing kisses in Renarin’s hair. “And I am your shield.”

Head lifted, Renarin puts a hand to the nape of Kaladin’s neck and presses in a fierce kiss. It says more than words ever could.

They are what they are, and they complete each other. Kaladin cannot hate, and Renarin cannot forgive.

Renarin is kisses that taste of blood, broken fingernails digging into his skin. Renarin’s love is fierce and hot, burning like the firelight that turns his golden hair to a halo.

Kaladin shuts his eyes and lets Renarin’s flame consume him.

He is forged in it.


End file.
